The \(C^{1+\alpha}\) hypothesis in Pesin theory revisited (Q2437969)

This article is concerned with the question to which extent Pesin's result about the existence of stable and unstable manifolds for regular hyperbolic orbits of \(C^{1+\alpha}\)-diffeomorphisms also holds in the \(C^1\) world. In [\textit{C. C. Pugh}, Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 59, 143--161 (1984; Zbl 0542.58027)], an example of a \(C^1\)-diffeomorphism on a \(4\)-manifold is given with a regular hyperbolic orbit having no stable and unstable manifolds, i.e., the associated stable and unstable sets are not injectively immersed submanifolds. Pugh also conjectured that Pesin's result holds in dimension two, or more generally, if the dimension of the stable manifold is one. The main result of the authors, which is of generic nature, gives a negative answer to this conjecture. For a compact \(3\)-manifold \(M\), they prove the existence of a nonempty open set in \(\mathrm{Diff}^1(M)\) on which generically a diffeomorphism has a hyperbolic ergodic measure \(\mu\) with trivial stable and unstable sets for every point in the support of \(\mu\). Furthermore, for every compact surface they provide a (non-generic) example of a \(C^1\)-diffeomorphism with a hyperbolic invariant measure on its chain recurrent set with trivial stable and unstable sets.